


Duels and Duality

by raiyana



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, life at hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22604683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiyana/pseuds/raiyana
Summary: After the first fall of Voldemort, Severus gains a teaching position... at the school he left only a few years before as a student. Returning to a group of familiar faces, he slowly realises that behind the faces, Professors are People, too.
Relationships: Filius Flitwick & Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall & Severus Snape
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Duels and Duality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katarina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katarina/gifts).



“In formal duelling tournaments, you can use all the flourishes and swings you like, Mr Potter, for your life does not depend on a split-second advantage – but for real life beyond this school…” he paused, sighing, “you’d do better to learn quicker reactions than flashy moves.”

The words, though not directed at him, carved themselves into the young mind of the boy listening to his enemy’s questions answered in hopes of working out their next ‘prank’.

Flitwick, himself a champion dueller, continued, slightly more warmth in his voice now:

“Flashy spellwork is for those who mean to boast – or do you think Headmaster Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald by spending extra seconds on fancy wand-waving?”

* * *

“You should sign up, Professor Snape,” Flitwick said, standing at his elbow and studying the poster for the Gringotts-sponsored duelling contest on the noticeboard. “As I recall you did quite well in both my own class and Defence.”

“It’s not my style, Professor,” Severus Snape replied, even though the prize was high enough to make applying tempting. “I never bothered to learn the style of casting preferred in such tournaments.” And appearing in such a public spectacle might not be a great idea, depending on how many people still seemed to recall his former allegiance.

“I always enjoyed a good tournament, myself,” Flitwick grinned, looking up at him as he magicked the teapot into serving him his favourite highly sugared brew.

Severus tried not to wince. He had only made the mistake of accepting an unsupervised cuppa from the diminutive Charms Professor _once_.

“Though you’re right about the show-off casting,” Flitwick continued, stirring in another heaping spoonful of sugar, “– still, you might do well at it; I could give you some pointers?”

“I…”

“Don’t pester the boy, Filius!” McGonagall interjected, looking up from a stack of essays that bled almost as much red ink as the ones Severus had graded the night before, dreaming of a spell to sort the drivel students habitually turned in into piles of already-graded parchment.

Severus wondered if he’d ever stop being a scrawny boy in ill-fitting clothes in her eyes.

“Not everyone wants to be a tourney duelist!” McGonagall continued, slashing another paragraph with red ink.

“Of course, Minerva, dear,” Flitwick replied, picking up one cup of tea and floating the pot over to refill McGonagall’s mug. “Second-years tonight?” he added, nodding at the stack of parchments before her.

Professor McGonagall – Severus still couldn’t make himself call her Minerva, even in his own head – sighed, dropping the latest attempt at coherent student writing onto her pile.

“Who would have thought the elemental laws of transfiguration could be so…” she muttered, picking up the teacup with an appreciative sound. “I haven’t seen such imagination since the days Sirius Black roamed these halls!”

Severus pretended that the name – at least that traitor was rotting in Azkaban, though the fact didn’t bring much solace – did not light the fires of his temper still.

“Goodnight, Professors,” he said instead, swooping out the door and following the corridors towards his private study before either of them managed a reply.

* * *

McGonagall looked tired in the morning when she showed up to sit at the back of his class. Strange.

She called it observing him in the classroom setting, and Dumbledore claimed it was to aid him be a teacher, but Severus would lay money on there being more than those reasons for her irregular presence in his classes.

And the summons to tea in her office.

Shaking off the slight annoyance at her presence, he got on with his lecture, managing not to glance at the unwelcome guest at the back table until the little miscreants were well into their brewing time.

McGonagall sat quietly, primly poised at the desk – he suspected she had cast a cushioning charm on the stool, but it might just be Scottish stubbornness keeping her so straightbacked – and looking attentively around the room.

Severus wouldn’t let her see that her presence affected him; and if her purpose truly _was_ to observe him teaching, pretending she wasn’t there would let her see him as he usually worked.

Something tingled at the back of Severus’ mind.

“Mr Brannigan!” he bellowed, wand out and a spell flying to contain the explosion that almost happened before he realised that his voice echoed with the sharply angry brogue of Minerva McGonagall.

Weird. She never spoke during these sit-ins.

Severus shook that thought from his mind, stalking down the aisle.

“Did you not hear me say just a _pinch_ of _lavender_?” he hissed, slamming his hand on the table to block the boy’s attempt at hiding whatever else he’d misappropriated for his potion mischief and ignoring the rest of the class beyond the wards set to tingle at the back of his skull at the first sign of danger. Such a nifty spell for a teacher… and a spy. He could do without the headaches of a full day of classroom brewing, but he meant to work out the kinks over next summer. “Read the fourth line on the blackboard for me.”

“A-add one pinch of lavender, stir four times clockwise,” Brannigan mumbled, staring at the aconite sprig crushed beneath Severus’ palm.

“Is this lavender?” Severus asked, lacing his voice with as much malice as Bellatrix Lestrange planning torture.

The students to either side of Brannigan shifted away as far as their stools allowed.

“N-no, sir,” Brannigan mumbled, looking down as though the scratches on his desk left behind by decades of previous students were the most interesting things in existence.

“You will write me two feet on the dangers of adding aconite to calming draught at this stage,” Severus decided, “and serve one detention reorganising storage-room one.” First-years were uniquely capable of leaving the storage cupboards looking like a horde of pixies had gone through them rather than students. It made for good detentions for the older students, though. “Perhaps you will have learned to recognise lavender by the end of it.” Leaning in, he added a soft warning – the Dark Lord had never screamed to get what he wanted, a quiet unspoken threat suiting the purpose far better. Severus had learned to emulate that tactic, finding it as effective on students as it was among the Death Eaters. “And if I find out that you were purposefully disruptive in order to steal the ingredients for something banned…”

Brannigan paled.

Severus returned to his prowling of the aisles, noting progress and struggles alike as the class settled back to their work, Brannigan still surrounded by a visible bubble of clear space as though he was contagious.

“I’m assuming that adding aconite to the boy’s cauldron would not have been a wise move at that time, Professor,” McGonagall said, looking up from behind her own desk in a way that never failed to make Severus think of his schooldays, standing before the disappointed deputy headmaster after another round of fighting Potter in a hallway.

Perhaps it was the air of disapproval.

Severus squashed the sudden desire to defend himself by claiming Potter started it.

“Indeed not, Professor McGonagall,” he replied, taking his usual seat in the deep chair before her desk when she motioned towards it. “If the potion was too hot, as Brannigan’s today, it would have exploded, dousing himself and his closest classmates in scalding liquid. Nasty burns – often resistant to magical healing spells.” Poppy would have managed, he was sure, if only because the burn salve in the Healing Ward was one of his own devising specifically designed to counteract the lingering effects of commonly exploded potions.

“I saw him fiddling,” she replied, nodding, “like he’d ants in his pants.”

So, it had been premeditated. Stupid little brat.

“Forgive that my potions knowledge is limited; what would have happened if the potion was not too hot?”

“Poison, at that point – particularly lethal in people with pre-existing anxiety; the most common use of calming draught is to combat anxiety – as it will do the opposite of the calming draught’s intended effect,” Severus said, “if the poison wasn’t strong enough to kill on its own – and that amount of aconite in the cauldron suggests it would have been, mind – the victim would be exceedingly likely to commit suicide, particularly at prolonged exposure.” He paused.

McGonagall said nothing, making a note on the parchment before her. Then she nodded.

“Is it your professional opinion that Mr Brannigan was intending to create such a poison?” she asked.

“While I do let students keep a vial of their own calming draught,” Severus said, “all cauldrons are tested by myself and Madame Pomfrey before decanting; if I had not caught him today, I would have then. They all know that, so my instinct tells me that Brannigan’s mischief was of a disruptive intent, not a murderous one.” He paused again. “Well, not murder by poison, at least; explosions are never safe, after all – I should not have liked to be sat anywhere near him.” There really should be some sort of spell to contain explosions, but they tended to be too hot and fast for shield spells to work, the magic blasting apart. Severus made a mental note to add shield spells to his list of summer experiments.

“No,” McGonagall agreed drily, “I think I shouldn’t either.” For a moment, Severus thought she was smiling, but then her face smoothed into neutrality once more. “I commend you for your swift reaction, Professor,” she nodded, and Severus accepted the implied dismissal.

“Good evening, Professor,” he said, nodding back to her as he got to his feet – a feat of some effort considering the plush dept of the velvet chair and the length of his legs – and left her office.

That might be the first time McGonagall had actually approved of something he’d done, he thought, swinging by the kitchen for a celebratory cup of hot chocolate before bed.

It felt good.

* * *

“I don’t want to sign up for tournaments – _yet_ – Professor,” Severus said, standing by the tea cart beside Filius Flitwick later that evening, “but perhaps you might teach me a few moves regardless?”

“I’d be delighted!” Flitwick beamed, dropping sugar into his tea with a splot and waving his wand, conjuring what looked to be a diary overflowing with bits of paper stuck between the pages. Making it hover beside him, he paged with the wand, absentmindedly stirring the tea with his free hand as he mumbled to himself, prodding appointments written in some obscure language that was probably Gnomish with his wand now and then. “I’ve a free couple of hours on Thursday evenings, if it suits your timetable?”

“I’ll move a few things,” Severus lied. The only thing he habitually did on Thursdays was the same things he did most nights: grading, reading books from the Restricted Section, and trying to decide whether summoning a House Elf for cocoa at three in the morning would be out of order.

“Excellent!” Flitwick replied, looking incredibly pleased for a man who had just volunteered to spend several hours a week with _Severus Snape_. Even Lucius never looked like that when he visited, but then Lucius was rather different to Filius Flitwick in many ways. “My classroom should be a suitable size.”

“I’ll be there,” Severus promised, feeling his lips twist into an approximation of a smile when Flitwick beamed at him again, popping the diary out of existence and grabbing his tea with a small happy squeak.

Strangely, Severus thought he might actually look forward to Thursday evenings with Professor Flitwick, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Minerva and Severus are my HP BrOTP.


End file.
